iOS26 iMessage activation error after iPhone migration

[valvoline]

Hi there,

I just want to share my frustrating experience. I bought a new iPhone 17 Pro, and after migrating from my old iPhone 15 Pro, I found that iMessage doesn’t work on my mobile number. It gets stuck with a rotating wheel. I tried almost everything:

• Turn off iMessage/FaceTime, remove the eSIM, restart the phone, and re-add the eSIM. Turn on iMessage/FaceTime.
• Reset network settings, turn off, turn on.
• Wait 24 hours (as per Apple support’s suggestion).

Nothing works. The iPhone is still showing an “unsuccessful activation” on iMessage. Nothing seems to work.

What is really strange is that my iPhone 15 Pro was running iOS 26, too, with no issues at all. The problem seems to occur when you install a new iPhone and migrate to that new device.

Anyone with the same problem? Looking around on Reddit, it seems to be a very common issue, and someone suggested that we probably need to wait for an update 26.0.1 that will come somewhere in the future.

 

[Dan08]

Same issue here. I have multiple eSIMs and while one of the carriers works without any issue, the other simply refuses to activate iMessage.

It makes me think it is an issue on that specific carrier’s end, but it very well could be both them and Apple’s iMessage activation server.

I have tried absolutely everything and I’m hoping that either the carrier fixes the bug on their end or Apple releases an update that fixes this bug. If it isn’t fixed soon I will probably just change carriers since I know that the other one works and they currently have some good promotions.

 

[valvoline]

Thanks for reporting. In my case, carrier seems not to be the root of the problem, since before iOS26 everything was working fine (I added and removed the eSIM as well as turning on/off the services multiple times without any issues).

I noticed the problem only with a fresh install of iOS26 and a migration of eSIM from one device to another.

 

[mcb13]

I discovered i was having this problem on my migrated 17 Pro Max this morning. Texts had been working fine and I had no idea until somebody asked why my texts were coming from my email address...

I found a suggested fix for it online and that worked for me. Here is what I did.

First put the phone into airplane mode. ( I suspect disabling Wifi and Cellular would have the same effect)

Next go into Apps settings and turn off Facetime and iMessage

Turn off the phone.

Turn the phone back on.

Turn off airplane mode.

Re-enable Facetime and iMessage. This seems to force the activation to try again and that worked for me.

Good luck!

Verizon was no help and Apple phone support wait time was looooong.

 

[valvoline]

Hi, thanks for the feedback.

Turns out that the problem has to do with the carrier that, as far as i can understand from Apple support, doesn’t implement some new standard enforced by iOS26.

I tried a lot of stuff (including the one you’re describing above) bit in my case it wasn’t helpful at all.

Problem was autosolved this morning, without any interaction. Just opened Messages settings and now it is also working on my phone number 🤷🏻‍♂️

thanks in any case for the help.

 

[unixfool]

I'm experiencing the same issue. I suppose I'll wait (like I have a choice) and check it in the morning. UPDATE: issue resolved after creating Apple support ticket yesterday.